Dear Jacob: January 24, 2011

Dear Jacob,

I wish I could jump ahead into the future so that I could establish if all that nagging I did back when you were seven was really necessary.  Because it seems that's all I do right now, and I feel very badly about it.  You see, sometimes it's just so hard to be in the same room, scratch that, the same house as you.  You are so annoying these days.  I don't know how long it's been like this, a year?  It definitely became unbearable when you started school last fall.  The way Beckie puts it is that you (little boys in general) spend so much of the day 'toeing the line' in school, that when you come home, you just have to let out all that pent-up energy.

But why does that energy have to be in the form of the World's Most Irritating Sounds?  In order of frequency, here are the things you do:  Repeat random syllables in a high-pitched sing-song voice, clap your hands (loudly) in a random pattern (is random pattern an oxymoron?), laugh in a maniacal way that makes me have to stop what I'm doing to go investigate what you've gotten into, make gun-shooting noises, stomp your feet.  The list goes on.

For entire minutes in our house the only thing that can be heard is me going, "Jacob, pllllease!"  Followed by your continuation of said random phrases, followed by my going, "Jacob, pllllease!" again, and on and on and on.  If I were to actually leave the room I'm in to look you in the eye and tell you to stop every time you do sometime like that, I would never get anything done.  As it is I can hardly get any stuff done because I spend so much time with my blood pressure sky high that I can't focus on my task at hand.

Just in case I am being too vague in my description of the annoying stuff, as I type this you're getting so far under my skin that I can't think of a good metaphor for how far under my skin you are.  Here is what you are doing:  Creeping around the corner of the doorway to peer in at me, for what reason, I'm not sure.  But without taking my eyes from the screen I can see that you have put on your coat, with the hood pulled up and the little neck tabs pulled across your chin, and also, you have your little goggles on.  You are giggling because then you creep past the doorway and you don't think I have seen you, and perhaps you think you are getting away with something because I would not approve of you wearing your coat in the house?  How many times have I told you about peripheral vision?  I don't have to be looking at you to see what you're doing.

I won't even get started on your interactions with Sabine.

Also, it's like you're testing the power of words or something.  You say stuff sometimes that doesn't mean anything, I can figure out why you'd be saying it, it's not true.  Today, "Sabine, I have a razor, I could cut you."

WHY?

Is it because you are on your way to becoming a psychopath?  Or do I not need to worry about that?  Because if I knew that threatening to kill your little sister is a normal thing, then I would have a lot less nights where I lie awake in bed.  Is it because you are bored?  If so, that sort of sucks, but at least I would know the reason and I could assure myself that when it is not zero degrees outside, your cabin fever would wear off.  Is it that you are testing the power of your words?

All these things I could understand, but maybe there is some reason only a seven year old boy can internalize, yet not be able to come up with the words to express why it is a necessary part of development.  Maybe there is a purpose, and if someone, or if Future You could tell me, then maybe I could live with it without really understanding it.  Right now all the crazy behavior seems so meaningless.  If some expert could tell me to have faith, that there is a reason, I will take that.

Also, I'd like to know if I am damaging you in some way when I stand there above you screaming, "Why are you doing this?"  Because in these moments I truly expect you to give me an answer; when people tell me that you're seven and you don't know why, I just can't accept that.  When I tell you that you are acting crazy, am I negatively influencing your self-esteem in a way that can't be repaired?  If it can be repaired, is it enough that I apologize when I need to and that I can admit when I was wrong?

I really just wish that you could give me an answer as to why you do these things.  That would be the best thing for our relationship; if you could just tell me why.  I could be so much more understanding.  If I have a reason for something, I can deal with it.

All my complaining makes it sound like I don't enjoy having kids.  But then I go upstairs to get into bed, only to find my two cherubs asleep in my spot, snuggled in with their arms wrapped around each other and it all sort of seems worth it.

Love,
Mommy

Day 69: I was fine until then

On Tuesday of our trip Jacob and I climbed the Cape May Lighthouse. Instead of posting a photo of the actual lighthouse, I thought it would be funnier to post this. My reason being: I was fine until I saw this sign at the base of the lighthouse. I really hadn't given the height or enclosed-ness of it a thought. Then I read the rules and all because I'm a rule-reading kind of person. As we got closer to the top, I was less and less of a happy camper. At the top I would hardly let Jacob go anywhere near the edge and I couldn't wait to get back down to the ground.

Prior to that, Zach and I had decided he would stay with Sabine and watch for us and I'd climb with Jacob. He'd had a foot issue going on and we thought it would be a pain to carry Sabine up (plus, when I read the Rules, I found out backpack carriers weren't allowed anyway), but when I got to the top and recalled our conversation and remembered Zach is a little queasy about heights as well, I realized that his 'foot issue' was just a way to get me to go instead.

I do have pictures of us at the top of the lighthouse, but they're not great or anything. For one, there was absolutely nowhere to safely change my lenses, and then there was no one who could figure out how to use my camera in order to take a picture of me with Jacob. "Sure, I can take a picture, as long as it's just point and click...?" I should have just had Jacob take a picture. But click on the photo to see what we did get.

Day 51: Art Therapy

Drafting this post in my head earlier today, it felt like I could make it short and brief, but who am I kidding to think that brevity has any rightful place in my life? So buckle up, or hold on, because the description that goes with this photo may contain boringness and you may fall asleep and bang your head on the desk if you're not careful.

Today my therapist asked me if I could journal it. And I was already forming this idea in my head of what I wanted to do, so I told her I didn't think I could, I didn't want to put that kind of negativity into a book that I carry around with me every day. And now that I'm home, typing this, (I have yet to take the photo that I've got in mind, the right characters aren't available at the moment) I sort of understand why I've been experiencing a craving to take this picture. I'm feeling caught between different emotions, going back and forth between being really, really angry and then realizing in the scope of things, it's not that big of a deal.

So I asked the therapist if I should just try to forget about it since no resolution is likely to come of things. On the drive home it occurred to me that forgetting about it or wrestling with the anger aren't the only two options. I need to put it into some concrete form so I can wrap my hands around the experience and shove it into place. I just need to get a hold of it, find it a good home in my psyche and get on with things; things that I'm supposed to be doing, like packing for the beach vacation, mowing the lawn, cleaning all the dog beds and anything else that might have fleas on it.

So here is my attempt at Art Therapy. This is Zach in the Civic, asleep, with Sabine on his lap, grabbing the wheel, at a pretend rest area.

This is why we were at the rest area: We went to visit long, lost friends for a few hours in NYC on Sunday. We took every wrong turn that was possible getting out of the city and that is why at 1am Monday we were still traveling and not yet cozy in bed.

This is why I needed to take this photo: Because someone else at that rest area decided it looked funny and took a picture of this scene while I was inside getting coffee. Except I was already on my way out and was right behind her when the flash went off. She saw me, my brain registered what just happened, her brain registered that those funny people belonged to me, and she went running inside.

This is what happened next: I took a split second to look back at Zach and see what she'd been taking a picture of, then turned back around and yelled, "Hey! Did you just take a photo?" If the bitch would have stopped running I could have just said, "Would you mind deleting that, please?"

My yelling that to her woke Zach, who opened the door for me and I shoved the hot coffees into his hands. I grabbed Sabine because he didn't have any hands left, and yes, someone just took a picture of my baby so my protective instinct made me hold her to my heart. Zach asked what happened and I said, "She just took a picture of you!" When I said that out loud I realized what I had to do. Not because I am particularly brave, or because I have a tendency to stand up for myself, I am neither of those. But because I am damn stubborn and will be heard, but the bitch kept running, so she left me no choice. I still had Sabine in my arms so in I walked with her.

My sister doesn't think that I should have confronted someone with my child in tow (an actual CPS worker), but I seriously had no idea it would become a confrontation. The silly little girl was embarrassed and so she ran, once I met up with her I assumed she would delete the photo at my request. Also though, I was not going to leave Sabine in the car with Zach, who was just coming to.

I waited for her little black flip flopped feet to emerge from under the stall for a good five minutes. When she came out I politely said, "Excuse me, can I ask you a question?" When she ignored me I moved a little closer and started again, "Excuse me, did you just take a photo of my family?" But this time she didn't let me finish, she starting yelling at me very loudly, so that everyone would hear. "Did I take a picture of your baby?! Of course I did! You left your child alone in the car!" She started walking away from me, and I yelled back that I did not and that she was well aware of the fact that I didn't leave my child alone because she saw my husband in the car with her and that's why she took a picture. We were in the lobby by now and everyone was watching us because she was yelling louder.

At this point her 'male companion' (who I like to think of as Ass Hole Boyfriend) came along. A lot of this is a blur in my mind now because I was having such heightened emotions. But she kept yelling the same thing over and over again, and I was not backing down. I think she wanted to embarrass me, and normally I am VERY concerned with how I look to others, but I honestly didn't care because my outrage was so great. And I think that she was proceeding with such indignity, that other people could tell she was the antagonist in the situation. Things went on like this as we moved toward the door (because she wouldn't stand still and face it like a decent human), and that's when she thought up the idea to declare she works for CPS.

Not for a second did I actually believe she worked for Child Protective Services because that's just a stupid thing to say. But also, um, no, if your livelihood is based on caring about endangered children, then no, you don't take a photo and run away. You call the police. You wait for the police to get there, you proceed with the situation calmy. And even if you don't work for CPS and you are just a concerned human being, then you still call the police and alert them that a child is left alone in an automobile. And then, when that mother you're screaming at asks what county you work for, and to see your identification, you hand it over, as policy dictates. You don't let your Ass Hole Boyfriend then get into the mother's face (the mother who is holding a 20 lb toddler) and scream at her. In her face. 2 inches away from her baby's face.

And that's what really bothers me. You don't act like that in front of a child. Me - that's one thing. You don't do that around someone's baby. And I definitely hope you never, ever procreate because God help those children. And it also really bothers me that she couldn't just delete the photo. Seriously, that is all I wanted. Not because there's anything 'incriminating' in it or because I thought Zach's skin was a little off color, or maybe I thought she could have gotten a better angle. But my child was in that photo. I seriously can't get myself enough into her shoes to figure why she couldn't just be a normal human, why she had to react so offensively.

And I know it's not that big a deal that she took a photo of my kid. It's not. But it's her reaction to my request and the way they harassed me that is what makes me feel so violated. It's everything after the photo, not just the photo itself.

I realize there are far worse things that happen to people, like actual crimes that are committed, and I'm not trying to put myself on the level of that kind of violation. That's why I'm writing this, so that I can get it out of my system and get on it with it.

And so getting back to the part where I attempt to make light of the situation, infuse it with humor and make it concrete so that I can grab a hold of it and put it away: You may have taken the photo Stupid Bitch, but I stole it from you in the end. And when you look at the photo and post it to your facebook account, you''ll probably have to look at your ugly face lit up in my car window's reflection.

You peeled away with your Ass Hold Boyfriend, but I got your license plate number:

BWF-8673

Day 7: In the Strawberry Patch

OK, so I'm a day late with this picture. I couldn't go one week without screwing up. It may have looked like I was late with Saturdays' photo though, but I wasn't really. I posted it late, late on Saturday night after I finished making Sabine's cake. When I went to check things out the next day something was screwed up and it wasn't there. But then when I went back later it was magically there again...oh well.

So today I am (retroactively) posting this picture of the kids in the strawberry patch to remind myself that they can be sweet and normal kids because the last few days I've been wanting to throw them out the window. Especially the little one. She no longer sleeps without screaming for two hours before hand. It's like some fairy visited on her second birthday and activated the 'terrible' switch.

Day 4: Set in her ways

This photo is from a couple weeks ago, but I had to post it because it's hilarious. I know some people might not find it funny to post a picture of their kids crying, but when my kids are grown I not only want to look back and see their smiling faces, I want to see the full range of their emotions. I'm an advocate of taking pictures of your kids in every kind of mood and from every different angle. I can't stand it when people take photos and aren't happy unless their kid is smiling angelically.

This was after a long romp in the mud, though I can't remember what exactly she was so worked up about. I just love the smudge under eye and Reggie in the background wondering what the heck was going on. Sabine's been doing a lot of this lately - that is to say, tantruming. I had been telling people, "She's practicing for when she turns two." Since she turned two this week, what better way to represent that by posting a picture that shows what will likely be the way she spends most of her time the next several months?

Our 'Special' Child

I posted this picture a couple weeks ago and since then Sabine has been really into that helmet. As you can see from the picture below, Jacob was responsible for Sabine ending up in the crock pot box - zooming around the house at top speeds (hence the need for the helmet) - which anyone could have guessed. What I think they were trying to do was invent a new Olympic sport, one they could enter as a brother-sister team. Good luck with that endeavor, I say, as long as they don't use any of my good boxes ;-)

When I was showing pictures one day, someone remarked that Sabine looks like a 'special' child in that helmet. Indeed she does.
Here she is after putting on her own jammies. Poor thing couldn't figure out why she wasn't walking right, but Heaven help the person who might try to fix her right leg into the proper place. The one butt cheek look was kind of darling though so I would have hated to see it be corrected anyway.


But when you consider the man that half my children's genetic material came from....is it any wonder? Neither of them really had a chance for normalcy.
What a special girl she is....

My New Hobby

If you happen to drive by a house and see a woman with her head halfway out the kitchen window and a bug-eyed crazy look on her face, wielding a gun - a glue gun, that is - it's probably me. I'm at war with the sugar ants. But since I'm the kind of person who can't hurt a fly, I've got to take the defensive approach. I can't just go get something that's going to kill them - the ants have as much a right to live as we humans do. What I've come up with a systematic approach, well, really, it's quite random, but let's just pretend for a minute that it's sane.

Anyway, here's how I've been spending my time: I come into the kitchen to say, cook a meal, but before I can do that, I've got to clear out the fifty ants who have taken up residence on my kitchen counter. They're coming in the window, that's clear, or at least that's how they started, now I think they live in the kitchen, under the counter, somewhere within the window frame, in small crevices that humans cannot see.

Two night ago I had a freaky dream in which I was at my church and for some reason I ended up in the hearth room and there were all these ants coming out of the woodwork. A nun, which we don't have in the Episcopal church, came in, turned around an old organ and there was the Ant Colony of the Century. It was crazy alive with ants. I was totally freaked in that dream and my skin has been crawling ever since.

After that point, I declared (humane) war on the Ants. I brought out the glue gun a then and I follow the creepy little suckers back to their home. After the hole they're going through is clear, I fill it in with dripping hot glue. Take that, suckers! I think. Eventually more ants come out, and it's always when I'm not looking. I'm sure they have guard ants standing in places I can't see who tell the explorer ants when my head is turned. Then, when I've just glanced away, they come out in droves. I swear, I can't figure out where they are entering from, but I've figured out that they get scared of me when I come into the kitchen so I bang around, or blow air on them and get them to run back to where they came from (or at least I think they are going back to where they came from, but I wouldn't put it past them to use decoy ants to throw me off their trail). When I see their entrance hole, I seal it up with Hot Glue. The ants who didn't make it back home scramble around, searching for an escape, but I'm not sitting there laughing or applauding myself, I actually want them to find an out, I want to know all their little nooks. I want them to be able to return home to safety and be alive, I just don't want them in My Kitchen.

I've covered several feet of teensy cracks in the kitchen, but they're still making it in. I've emptied the counter of clutter, the better to clear crumbs. I clean the counter many times a day with vinegar or stronger stuff - they still want in. I don't know what to do, I already spend half my life in the kitchen, these days I'm basically there all the time, with one eye on the windowsill, just waiting for the little buggers to enter. I haven't found anything that will stop them for good, but then again, I haven't had time to research natural ant repellents because I can't leave the kitchen.

Making our own Indoor Fun

I posted earlier about all our outdoor fun this winter. Outdoor activities tend to set themselves up; they're there for the doing and they're pretty much the same from year to year, with just the details changing. It's being indoors during the winter that dictates the need for creativity. We did a lot of crazy things in the name of staying sane this year. I'll file them under the title 'Cabin Fever'.

We made it to Christmas in a pretty good frame of mind.
Here's some of the cousins at Christmas.
Everyone looks happy and healthy.

Jacob got a remote-control helicopter for Christmas,
and initially I was like, "Couldn't you have given
him something a little more educational?" But it turns
out this thing was a lifesaver many times. Jacob passed
many hours mastering this - I still can't figure out how
to fly the thing. He also enjoyed torturing the dogs and
scaring Sabine with it.

We had a lot of hot chocolate parties...Sabine really
got the hang of drinking from a mug. All in the name
of chocolate, that's my girl.

Sabine thought she'd take it upon herself to
claim some of her very own computer time.

She also stepped it up a notch in terms of
hiding places and fitting into small spaces.
(that's her behind the shades)

I cleaned out my old make-up and let Jacob
use it for some really creative projects.

Zach and the dogs even started going loopy.

A bakery truck must have crashed in front of our
house because one day I came home to find 50
baguettes laying in our front yard. The dogs discovered
the frozen bread on the front lawn and they spent
the next two weeks dedicated to the goal of
digging it out and eating it. Ginger
succeeded one day and came running into the house
with a full loaf of it sticking horizontally out of
her mouth. It was the first time I ever saw her
stick up for her food when Mango tried to take it away.
Must be some bakery.

Sabine kisses everything with a face. One night at
dinner she discovered the honey bear had a face
and it was all we could do to keep her from climbing
over her plate to get to him for a smooch.

She also spent a lot of time in that hat, at times
pairing it with sunglasses. She rocked that look.
And she knew it.

The most exciting part of my winter was when
the new recycling bin came and we could suddenly
get rid of the piles of plastic I'd been accumulating.
"But look at all the things I can recycle that I couldn't
before!" I said in disbelief as I was setting up this photo.

I was taking photos for an Annie's contest, to win
a basket of goodies. The kids thought it was the
coolest thing that I let them eat right out of the
box - they stuffed their faces in fear of me taking
it away. They may be skinny, but this proves they
can house an entire box of crackers in one sitting.

The little one discovered diaper cream.

Zach invented "the Bull"

This is the first thing that usually happens
when he comes home from work now. The kids
hardly give him a chance to get in the door
before they jump him.

The game, it appears, will continue for
generations to come. Thanks Winter.

Day Five: Game On

Welp. The Yanks won last night.

Jacob requested we get Chinese food last night, which is a rare treat, so I said yes because Zach was going to be working late, again. This means there wasn't much dinner cleanup. In fact, I have gotten so lazy in this recent wave of Zach working late that I didn't bother doing any dishes last night and the kitchen is a mess. You know, now that I'm thinking about it, it's almost like I left the kitchen a mess on purpose to disguise the chicken gook (yeah, that's what I'll call it) because I was afraid Zach might actually clean it up.

I needn't have worried. There was never any mention of it. The reason I thought it might happen is because Zach couldn't sit down for most of the game. I kept urging him to and he'd just look at me, a little wild-eyed, and say, "I can't, I have to stand up." Poor thing was so nervous. It was around this point he told me he might actually not go to bed at all. I think it came up because I said something about the rabbit cages and he told me he'd do them after the game. Say what?

Understandably, I thought the kitchen might get cleaned. Like I said, I was dreaming.

Below are the pictures. One I took yesterday when I thought it might be my last photo op. I cheated though, I moved it from the counter in order to get a better shot. I put it right back though, I mean, after I tested its reaction to gravity. Guess what. It didn't budge. I held it completely perpendicular to the ground and the only thing that happened is a little bit of unsolidified juices ran from the center. I'm assuming this is just what's left of the water. or maybe some kind of oil that remains liquid at room temperature?

** Fun fact - It jiggles! Like Jello! Hm, what does that say about what's in Jello?

Here is the picture I took this morning. It's not very good because Zach was just in the other room and I didn't dare draw attention to the counter area by moving things around. Notice the line of delineation on the top, a little to the right. Is it just me, or has it receded a little more?

Look at all the pretty colors! To be fair, I have to mention that this is not all just from the chicken. What I did was I cooked it in mushroom soup. Being a vegetarian, I'm not sure if that is an appropriate thing to do with chicken? I thought it might infuse some yummy taste into the chicken...but what it really seems to have done is add more life to the gook by way of colors and fun texture. Let me ask you this, knowing now that there's mushroom in there, does that answer some questions about the nastiness, or does it just make it that much worse?

More Fun with The Husband Experiment

Remember The Great Husband Experiment of 2008? That was some good, clean fun. Well The Husband Experiment is baaAAaack, compliments of our latest kitchen appliance: The Slow Cooker.

Here's the synopsis: I purchased a slow cooker earlier this year and have been really enjoying the fact that I can cook more meals for Zach that include meat (in our otherwise vegetarian household) without me actually having to handle it. The deal is that I do most of the cooking of it, but if there's any sort of action that included prolonged handling of the rotting animal flesh, Zach has to take care of that. I'd cooked these chicken parts that had bones in them, not sure what kind, I tried not to look. Zach ate them for dinner and the rest stayed in there while he went to watch Game 4 of the World Series.

I am not a Yankees fan, as are the boys of the house, so I decided I was too tired to make it through the whole game awake. I cleaned up the kitchen and told Zach that I was going to bed so could he please remember to strip the chicken off the bones per our agreement? I'd told him earlier that I'd like him to strip the bones so that I could freeze the chicken bits and later make chicken pot pie from scratch for him. I left a container out for him to put the chicken in and went to bed.

The next morning I was pleased to find that Zach had remembered to take care of the chicken and did not let it sit out all night to rot. However, the 'juices' were still sitting in the slow cooker. This is not out of the ordinary. Often times Zach will leave the juices of something cooked to solidify in order to more easily clean it up later on. He also has more energy for tasks like this in the morning. I assumed that after the coffee was brewed and he was fully awake, he'd probably get rid of the now-hardened chicken slime.

Funny, after Zach left for work and I was back downstairs getting everyone breakfast, I noticed the slow cooker was still as I had previously seen it. Hm. This is the first indication of trouble. We'll call this day 2.

Later that night Zach remarked that we should have dumped the chicken juices over the dogs' food when we fed them the night prior. "Oh yeah, they would have loved that last night. Too bad it's infested with bacteria by now," I remarked. I didn't give the stuff anymore thought that night. Again, the Yankees were playing and everyone was distracted, our routine still being messed up because of the World Series.

When I got up to run pre-dawn the next morning, I couldn't believe my eyes that the stuff was still there. I was all bleary-eyed though, so I rubbed them a little and tried to refocus. Nope. Well, the Yankees had lost the night before so maybe that was Zach's excuse for not cleaning up. But if that's so, they'd won the night before so common sense would dictate that he would have cleaned it up the night he was in a good mood, right? So begins Day 3.

Later on that day while I was making lunch I had to clear some space so I took the inner crock out of the clow cooker and put the larger electrical parts back in the box and onto the shelf where they are stored. I was going to clean up the chicken mess, but upon further investigation I just decided my stomach couldn't take it. The kids and I left the house after lunch for Jacob's gym class.

I expected Zach to be working late so Jacob, Sabine and I went to my mom's house to hang out for a while. Zach actually beat us home so on the phone we talked about him cleaning out the rabbit cages and getting other stuff done around the house while waiting for me and the kids to pick him up to go vote.

Back at home after a quick trip to the polling place, I started dinner. Funny, the crock pot was still there. Oh well, it will get taken care of after dinner because there's no Yankees game on, I thought to myself.

After a late dinner when Zach had started talking 'going to bed early', I was about to ask him to clean up the chicken stuff before he retired for the night. But instead of doing so, I saw an opportunity and grabbed my camera:

This is the scene of the investigation.
The sink is just to the right, you know,
the place where someone might clean out
something like this. The coffee maker (i.e, the
thing Zach and I both use a couple times a day,
is just to the left.

Exhibit A: You can see from that upper film,
which is separated from the hardened juice by
black (we'll call this the line of delineation), where
the stuff once came to. Over the course of 48
hours much of it has evaporated.

Exhibit B: This picture is shown to demonstrate
the detail and texture of the stuff.

Now here we are beginning Day 4. I think it is time to give the 'stuff' an official name. I'll think on that today and get back to you. Feel free to leave your suggestions. As for my prediction: Tonight is game 6...if the Yankees win, there's actually a good chance Zach may clean this thing up. Part of me will be disappointed, but then again, I'll be able to use the slow cooker at long last so there's an up side either way. If the Yankees lose, there's no chance of it being cleaned up.

Teach me to fish!

What is with these kids of mine and their non-sleeping?? It is 6:30pm, Sabine has been awake since 9:45am when she woke up from a 45 minute nap. Before that she'd woken at 7am after being awake for several hours through the night. Really, she was awake for more hours than I care to recall just being in the bed, awake, sometimes cute, sometimes nasty. She wanted to play, she wanted to nurse, she wanted to slap us in the faces. All of that she did. Zach and I were miserable and yelling at each other because we couldn't figure out what to do but all we knew for sure was that if we didn't get to sleep we were surely going to die. To recap: My 10 month old baby has been awake for the day for almost 12 hours of the day, 45 minutes of that was spent napping.

We can't go for more than a few days before having a really hard night or really hard day in regard to the non-sleeping. I thought we were doing well for a while, she was going down for a couple naps a day at a pretty regular time. And then Tuesday happened. This Tuesday was horrible, I was a horrible mess, Sabine was 16 pounds of cranky misery. We made public fools of ourselves, etc, etc, etc.

When I'm having a day like this my mom and Jamie usually end up baring a lot of the weight. They show up and swoop down like angels to take the baby out of my arms so I can breathe. Tuesday was just a total wash and I don't even want to relive it. Today was Tuesday all over again, and by the way, Zach was working, he's always working. At Jacob's t-ball game today I was about to lose it because Sabine was freaking out screaming really loud as I was trying to put her to sleep and then my mom showed up and gave me my arms back. When Sabine still didn't go to sleep I started losing it again, telling my mom that I'd had plans for after the game and if Sabine didn't fall asleep now she'd fall asleep in the car and that would be the end of our plans.

My mom told me that she would leave the game with Sabine. She would drive to my house and sit in the car while Sabine slept in her carseat and that I could take Jacob to the store like I'd planned. I told her that was crazy for her to do that, to go out of her way like that. I felt helpless, like nothing could make the difference. I still feel like that in this moment, like no amount of working on this sleep schedule thing will make it come true. I told my mom that perhaps Sabine would fall asleep on the way home and she'd get a nap, thus possibly going to bed at a normal time and possibly enabling Zach and I to get sleep tonight, but that would be like giving a man a fish. You know the adage: Give a man a fish, he eats for a day, teach a man to fish, he eats for a lifetime. I want the secret to this sleep thing, I want somebody to give me a freaking clue, tell me what I'm doing wrong, tell me what to do to get her to sleep!!! I want someone to teach me how to fish!

Dear Not Sabine

I can't remember the last time I wrote a 'Dear Sabine' letter. Mostly it's because Sabine is so crazy, so it's her fault anyway. She's like this toddler trapped in a 10 month old body. Haha, I just thought of something, she's like Benjamin Button, although I didn't see the movie (yet).

Sabine is just like Jacob was at this age. She is so fast - she'll be halfway up the staircase before I even realize it. Yes, she's mastered crawling up the stairs already. She has impeccable fine motor skills, picking up something the size of a head of a pin at the first try. She crawls into a room, scans the scenery and decides instantly what she can go after. And she usually gets to it. Already most of the shelves are reachable. And if there's something she can't reach she gets high on her tippy toes and goes for it. I swear once or twice I've seen her lift her body off the floor chin-up style.

Don't get me started on the things she's been putting in her mouth. It's been a real picnic. Also, she grabs at things when you're carrying her around the house. I'll be washing her hands, scrubbing the right one and all of a sudden she waving the soap dish around in the air with her left hand. Nothing is safe. All of this is too early. I'm not ready for this.

Also, there's the thing where she follows me around non-stop. She wants me, only me, and me NOW. If someone else is holding her, that's not ok, whether I'm in the room or not. She crawls just as fast I as can walk, so she's there all the time, literally a little ankle biter. She grabs at my legs and trips me up. Needless to say, I've been pretty annoyed. But God Damn is she cute.

Then there's the thing that Jacob's been doing: He's been asking ass-dumb questions. Like completely obvious things. Or questions that I have no idea about the answer to. Today in a parking lot: Why is that man walking up that hill? I have no freaking idea. Does it look like I know that man? Why are you putting the glue in that drawer? Because that's they drawer it always gets stored in. I can't think of any good examples, but maybe your five year old is like this too? Over the weekend one of our little five year old friends, Emma, asked me if the marker she had in her hand worked, but she was already coloring with it, and it very obviously worked. "I don't know, silly, you tell me." I told her. I've noticed this about Emma before, and I'm going to have to pay attention to other five year olds because so far it appears that this is the equivalent of the two year old's constant WHY? line of questioning.

Well that's today in a nutshell, annoyance from every angle.

The hole in the wall

This is the hole Zach punched in the wall last weekend. He's not a violent person and as far as I know, he's never done anything like that before. But it just goes to show you that things in this house are insane lately and how stressed out we've been about the state of things.

We got back from our trip out of town late on Sunday (which I never got to write about - maybe I will this weekend) and the house was 81 degrees. Zach had run all the wires for the new thermostat before we left for the weekend and had set it up for an electrician friend of his to stop by while we were gone to do the final wiring stuff that he couldn't do. Zach was trying to get it shut off but he wasn't having any luck. Two hours later and no success, he punched the hole in the wall. I would have only lasted an hour, and my hole would have been from kicking it.

What really sucks is that's the wall that Zach just put in a few months ago. It's so new that only half the project was completed. I'm still waiting for the cubby part of the closet/cubby project to be finished. But I figure it's the same concept as when I wear shoes in the house (which no one is supposed to do). "It's ok for me to wear shoes in the house if I'm just running back into the house for something because I'm the one who cleans the floors!" I rationalize. So if Zach's the one building the walls, then I guess it's up to him if he wants to punch a hole them.

It's that whole one step forward, two steps back thing though. Spend all this time running the lines, have the electrician come over, but then you've got to start from the very beginning the next day anyway. Build a wall up, knock a hole in it, then spent the next three days applying many coats of tape, spackle, primer and paint. Nothing in our lives seems to be going smooth lately.

He's working a lot, I'm alone with the kids a lot, and it takes a toll on us. I wrote back in December (second paragraph) how to have children feels like one of your vital organs is walking around outside your body. I'd said when Jacob was born it was like my heart was no longer contained inside my chest cavity. I've decided that Sabine has taken my brain. That's how I'll refer to them now: "These are my kids, 5 and 9 months, this is Heart, the little one, well we like to refer to her as 'Mommy's Brain.'" I'm doing stupid things, forgetting easy information, and worst of all, I'm becoming an unreliable person. I forget things now. Important things. And I don't like it. I don't want to be that person. Two days in a row I told a friend that I would leave something my front porch for her, and two days in a row I've forgotten. I couldn't keep the thought in my brain long enough to hit 'send' on the e-mail, walk down to the basement, move the sheet rock out of the way, and carry it upstairs to the front steps. I feel like suck a jerk.

I called Zach to complain about a couple things and he said, "I don't know what your problem is, why you're so mad all the time..." I thought about it, but I didn't have to think long because just after we hung up the phone I had to put Sabine into the playstation so she'd be safe while I was running up and down the stairs with the table and chairs. She cried the whole time, which put my stress level to a certain undesirable amount. Then Jacob was hungry, so I got a some fruit ready for him and a drink, finished cutting the lotion container open so I could put some on my severly chapped hands, and by the time I was done with that Jacob was inquiring about Zach being home. When I told Jacob that it was going to be another late night for Zach, Jacob had a good cry over that. Which raised my stress level more. I eased him out of sadness by offering some canteloupe. I was going to cut it up but something happened with Sabine that I had to tend to. After that I was holding her and she didn't want to be put down. I was just about to sit down to feed her but had to tell Jacob the canteloupe was going to have to wait. He didn't like that and I felt torn between two different kids needing two different kinds of foods. I couldn't simultaneously provide for both their needs and that gave me a great deal of stress. So back to the kitchen I headed to cut up the cantenoupe. Of course I'd just put on lotion, but that figures, once I get a chance to do something for myself, it's usually undone because of something like that. It went back and forth like that for the next hour, ending in my dragging Jacob upstairs, screaming at him, "You're tired!" and, "Yes you are, you don't know what tired is!" And him screaming over me, "No I'm not! I'm not tired!" The two of us, repeatly screaming that in each other's faces. Hilarious. Now my stress level is so high I want to throw someone out the window. When the stress gets to be that much and that intense, you'd do things you never thought you'd be capable, and I guess in some situations that's how child abuse happens.

I don't really know what my point is in all this. The moral isn't Don't have kids, never in a million years would I wish my life was any different. I guess maybe if there has to be a point, then I am calling for some action: Someone please invent a remote control that will turn your kids off,or at least throw them into slow-motion mode. Or perhaps invent a time-stopper. Something along the lines of that. But what I'm really writing this for is so that when the kids are older and I have this vague recollection of of feeling up to my neck in that "I've had it" feeling, I can remember exactly what about the days were so trying. Or if Jacob ends up in school after only half a year of homeschooling, I can remind myself why I just couldn't take it anymore. And I'm writing for practiccality's sake, so when Zach gets home I can show him and say, that's what my problem is. Only, it's not a problem, it's my life, and I guess I wouldn't change it even if I could.

What it's like being me

You know that get-to-know-you game that you played at birthday parties and summer camp as a kid? The one where you go around the circle as each person says their name and an adjective beginning with the same letter as their name that also happens to describe them? Mine is easy, Sensitive Stacey. That is, hands down, the one word that describes me best. It encompasses the fact that I am attuned to other peoples' needs (external sensitivity), as well as my own internal sensitivity - most of my neuroses can be explained by attributing them to one or another of my sensitivities.

For the last year or so I've had a little bit of a break from myself in this 'sensitive' regard. I was taking Zoloft for depression and anxiety. I had thought I could make it through my pregnancy without it, but by the time February rolled around I was a mess. I can recall the moment on the kitchen floor - when I was having trouble getting up because the emotional energy that required was more than I could muster - that I decided what I really just needed was to be medicated. So I just stayed and cried in the little patch of sun that was shining on my resting place up against the cupboards and reconciled myself to the idea that the risks of taking antidepressants during pregnancy was nothing compared to the stress my little fetus probably felt living inside a cocoon of depression.

I've been on and off anti-depressants since I was 18. The off and on-ness of it is because there've been tougher times and not-as-tough times. And in my mind not being on drugs is a more natural, organic state of being, which is the way I aim to live my life. I sort of always felt like it was a contradiction to my being to live in a medicated state of mind. But this time around I think I finally found a way to rationalize it to myself: In a perfect world no one would need anti-depressants because us humans would be living the way our biological systems intended us to be living. We'd be eating wild game, living off of the land, and we wouldn't be in constant contact with pollutants and all the electrical devices (which I think have effected us on an energetic level).

We're not living in a perfect world, therefore, our brains and bodies are failing us. We have to make adjustments (that, unfortunately, are unnatural) to our lifestyles so we can live optimally. And as long as I understand this, and understand the why's and how's of my biological failings, then I think I can accept being medicated without feeling like a hypocrite. Thanks to on-and-off therapy since I was nine years old, and many friends who like to play therapy with me, I do understand myself.

With that said, I stopped taking Zoloft ten days ago. And the forthcoming reason will be completely random to some of you: I have this crazy desire to donate breastmilk. It was something I wanted to do when Jacob was younger and I was nursing him. There wasn't a place around here that it could be done, so I think I never looked further for information. A few months ago I read about a national milk bank in California that can accept milk from anywhere in the country. I do not know why I want so badly to donate breastmilk, but I very much so want to, and it's enough of a desire that I've been taking six weeks to carefully wean myself off of Zoloft (also going slowly for Sabine's safety, so that she doesn't experience withdrawal).

My plan is to continue to donate breastmilk for as long as I can tolerate not being on Zoloft. I definitely plan to go back on Zoloft (which is safe for breastfeeding mothers, but not safe enough for the milk bank because the human formula that is made from donated milk is very concentrated and is given to tube-fed preemies). And when I am done nursing Sabine I will consider switching back to Paxil - which is what I was taking just before I got pregnant with her.

Anyway, now that it has been almost two weeks without Zoloft, I finally remember the reasons why I was on it to begin with. In my most natural state I am a very scared person. I have a very thin skin. Actually, quite literally - I have sensitive skin; just got a sun burn last week (in March!), my knuckles and finger tips have been all chapped and bloody from the cold winter air, I have eczema, light-sensitive eyes, etc, etc, etc. I cry a lot. I obsess about things.

Basically the difference between un-medicated and medicated me is like this: More vs. Less. When I am not on an anti-depressant I am more emotional, scared, clingy, fearful, more sleepless, compulsive. I had a better analogy that I thought of earlier, which I can't recall at the moment. When I am medicated I just feel so much more comfortable in my own skin.

Coming off of medication is a whole different way of being, but I hope it's temporary. For the first week I was incredibly dizzy, vertigo levels of dizzy, as well as nausea with headaches. Now I'm just incredibly irritable and flustered. My brain is foggy and I don't feel like myself. Up until a couple weeks ago, I can say that I had never left anything on the roof of the car and driven off. Well, since I've stopped the Zoloft, I've done that three times. Three times I've set something on the top of the car (three different places) and told myself not to forget it, knew that would be so cliche to actually forget it, yet all three times I drove away only to watch the dish/glass bottle/cup of coffee slide off the car and shatter in the road. My short-term memory is shot, but of course that could just be from the kids.

I'm not the kind of depressed that requires medication to ensure your own safety or the safety of those under your care, I'm the kind that gets so scared driving over a bridge for fear of it collapsing under me that I might possibly drive over the edge because I'm clutching the steering wheel so tightly, thus creating a self-fulfilling prophecy. And this is what I saw, in my mind, happening coming home from gymnastics two weeks ago.

It started when I saw one of those big trucks, like a delivery truck, with all white panels and a beautiful picture on the side as that company's logo. It was a picture of the Earth from space, with a beautiful pink, orange and yellow sunrise coming up over the side of the Earth. My eyes shifted to the front of the truck to read the company's name. I can't remember what the name was (so I'll guess), it was what was underneath that which made me shudder. Haskell Brothers: Casket Division. I passed the truck as I was turning onto the entrance ramp for the highway.

Not more than half a mile down the road I had to swerve to avoid an object laying in the middle of my lane. Just as I was about to pass the object the words on it came into focus. Funeral. It was one of those little signs that goes on the lead car in a funeral procession. It had fallen off and was laying directly in my path. I'm the kind of person who believes in signs, as in signs from the universe, so what the hell did that mean?! I wanted to get on the phone and at least tell someone, speak the words aloud so it didn't feel so much like I'd just drawn the death card. I thought better of it because I decided that would be just my luck to get on the phone for moral support, only to cause a car crash by being on the phone. Which would that be, a self-fulfilling or self-defeating prophecy? (Kevin, you will tell me, right?)

But there's more to the story: This past week, coming home from gymnastics, on that very same stretch of road, I came up to a car going slowly with its flashers on. I passed it. And don't you know there was a car in front of that one doing the very same thing (flashers on, driving slowly), and then another, and another, until there were 25 of them stretched in a row with a big black car in front, two little purple flags atop it. Um...

Maybe the hearse was back on that same road looking for the funeral sign it dropped last week? Either that or someone is trying to tell me something. What is going on? I don't know, but I haven't been able to stop thinking about it since. I'm kind of nervous to go back to gymnastics next week. Frankly, I'm kind of nervous all the time now. And this is the thing I can't let go of.

I dropped Jacob off with Jamie this morning so that I could finish packing for the weekend (we are going to visit Danielle and Co. - woohoo!). I was in a hurry so I quickly said goodbye and I ushered him inside then I jetted back out to the car where Sabine was waiting. As I was backing out, Jacob was back at the door to say goodbye again. I rolled down my window, blew him a kiss, said I love you. I rolled Sabine's window down so he could yell goodbye to her. And all the while I'm looking at him, taking it all in as if it might be the last time I see him. I'm giving him the perfect goodbye, incase that's the last one he ever gets from me. I want a smile to be on my face in that last image of me he carries around with him for the rest of his life. Because where he is standing is the very spot where I last saw my father alive; I watched him from the house, saw him going down the steps though blurred shades and that was it.

Life changes that quickly and I walk through my days anticipating, almost expecting, something bad to happen. I'm sure of it. The part I'm not sure about it when or how it's going to happen. And so what does an overactive imagination have to do with that knowledge but constantly make up death scenarios?

I continued to drive home with our perfect goodbye in my mind and tears in my eyes - but then thought, wouldn't it be ironic if the thing I'm fearing is the exact opposite. Like the book we just read for book club, My Sister's Keeper (spoiler alert). The whole book is a battle to save one sister from dying because she needs a kidney. Everyone is afraid of that certainty, but don't you know, in the very end, it's the other sister, the healthy one, who's killed in a car accident. So should I really be worrying about Jacob losing me, or me losing Jacob? How cryptic it is to have those thoughts at the forefront of your mind all day long.

And that's what the drugs do - they push back the fear so it's a more normal, rational kind of fear. The fear is still there protecting me from feeling immortal. I'm still me with all the same thoughts as before. The thoughts just don't take over. I have the same feelings, they just aren't as crippling. And my skin gets the benefit of one more layer of protection. I'm me, but a little less.